Sub-Umbra

The Victorians may have attempted to show the world they were upright, strict and full of virtue but much of this thinking has been subverted by their erotic and pornographic writing. With a vast Empire to organise and rule Victorians authors also had a wealth of new locations in which to have their characters fornicate in their written erotic adventures. These purveyors of erotic literature were no slouches when it came to getting their materials into the hands and minds of others. They used one of the great tools of the day; the literary magazine. Engagingly in the great tradition of literary magazines who serialised many wonderful books the Victorians had their own pornographic magazine which ran for eighteen monthly issues from July 1879 to December 1880. That seems to be quite some enterprise when you consider just the business side of printing and distribution of it whilst one presumes the law was casting its beady eyes at you. On the literary side it managed to print six serialised novels with Sub-Umbra or Sport Among The She-Noodles being one of them as well as many short stories and a whole host of other minutiae including ballads, poems, limericks, jokes, witticisms, puns, ditties all in textures from refined to coarse. This book's full title is the protagonist's reference to his female cousins and their friend. It should be added that one of the cousins suggests that they were noodles for not indulging in sexual activity prior to their initiation by their older cousin. Cousin Walter is 19 and tells the story in the first person of his sexual adventures with his cousin Frank, his three younger female cousins and their teenage friend during a stay at their country residence. Loss of virginity and orgies are order of the day in these hugely risque Victorian revelations.